Amadeus (film)
Amadeus (Directed by Milos Forman)/1984
A
huge hit in 1984, Milos Forman’s Amadeus has fallen out of popular
consciousness to a great extent. Part of this may be due to its cartoonish
visual qualities, and the blatant projection of 1980s American culture onto 18th
Century Vienna. It maybe also be partly due to the failure of the lead actor
Tom Hulce to do anything else of importance. While Amadeus is an extremely bad
movie if watched as a historical representation of true events, it is a great
movie if appreciated on its own terms.
Amadeus
presents Mozart as an 18th century version of a contemporary
rock-star. Mozart is a musical visionary that wants to make beautiful music,
but is continuously constrained and judged by the conservative elites that
commission his works. He develops a serious alcohol addiction, and slowly loses
his mind. He comes across as childish and without any concern with social
expectation, while the jealous Salieri is constrained by his inability to create
without concern for the judgments of others.
Director
Milos Foreman is, in this movie, presenting his conception of genius, and
simply uses the historical character of Mozart as a vehicle to do this. Foreman
demonstrates that genius cannot exist with a concern for what other people
think of it, and original great work will not be appreciated by the critics of
the age. Moreover, he demonstrates how artistic greatness is ultimately tied to
a self that is free from the shackles of fear and simply wants to create
something beautiful for its own sake.
The
darker side of Amadeus’ vision is that society will try to break the genius by
criticising her work, and out casting her for not creating something that is
within the realms of social expectations. The pressure placed on Mozart by
society is personified by the man in the black mask, who brings Mozart’s death
sentence in the form of a piece of commissioned music. That being said, the
movie makes the point that it is better to die an authentic individual be a
mediocrity that spends his life trying to please those in power like Salieri.
Viewers
may take offence with the use of American accents, gestures and statements in a
portrayal of Mozart. Yet, for me, this brought the movie to life in contrast to
the wooden and overly serious portrayals of historical characters in other
biopics. It made me reflect on the typical use of British accents and the
bland, humourless characters that often litter historical movies. The reality
is that living today we can never present a representation of what life would
be like in 18th century Vienna: we can never escape our own
historical and culture embeddedness to do so. If we accept this fact, then
there is nothing wrong with presenting history overtly as the kind of existence we
experience.
Finally,
if you enjoy Mozart’s music, then you will love this film. Forman does an
amazing job of weaving the music into the movie at the perfect time, and in a
beautiful way. It is also fascinating to think about how at the time, classical
music was the popular music of the day, and that a new opera would have created
hype and drama in the manner of a Radiohead or KRS1 concert today.
